The Future of Websites and How They'll Be Affected by AI Search

[00:00:00]Hello everyone, and welcome back to the channel. Um I hope you're all keeping well in [music] the UK heatwave, which is now rolling on 3 weeks, possibly even longer than that.

[00:00:11]So, for today, I'm going to be talking to you about an interesting topic, something I haven't really made a video about too much, so to speak, which is you know, where will websites [music] be in 5 years time? Will websites even exist in 5 years time? And what [music] might replace them? Now, I've got some stuff in front of me, but I brought you know what I want to say anyway. I'm going to be reading off the screen a little bit, quoting different sources, but I'm going to be talking freelance [music] into the camera at the same time. I've got the coffee here as per usual, which is a must-have for these videos.

[00:00:47]>> [laughter] >> Um Okay, look. So, for those of you who run [music] businesses, you know, you may be a marketing manager within a company.

[00:00:55]You may be [music] a founder starting a small-scale company. Or you may be like a senior manager [music] in a much, much bigger company, multi-site operation.

[00:01:06]Now, in case you're seeing kind of inquiries [music] and bookings, you know, drop through the roof, as in, you know, a lack of them.

[00:01:14]Um it's been like a this kind of quiet shift over you know, certainly over the last year with [music] kind of zero click search.

[00:01:21]So, that basically means when you know, somebody types a query into Google, [music] it will present an AI overview. And according to various statistics, which I will be reading off some as we go through the video, you know, in the US, [music] 68% of searches resulted in um like a what's called a zero click search. So, you know, it just presented like an AI overview. And the people [music] were happy with that, and they didn't bother clicking through into the actual uh you know, website and you [music] know, follow on traffic and stuff.

[00:01:52]So, like it's an interesting subject.

[00:01:54]Obviously, we live in the AI era now.

[00:01:57]So, you know, AI overviews and stuff.

[00:02:00]Um there's loads of stuff here. We're going to get into it in a minute. Um yeah, I mean I'm not going to give the whole theme of the video away. We're going to work through it, and we'll we'll kind of, you know, see where we end up. Um This shift like is already happening.

[00:02:14]It's um you know, a lot of something about 8 and 9 months ago, I remember a lot of, you know, um businesses were mentioning that their organic traffic or yeah, even paid traffic had just like literally fallen through the roof almost overnight as these kind of AI overviews were brought brought in.

[00:02:33]Um look, let's let's read off the screen a little bit. So, in 5 years' time, will anyone type a URL into a browser, like a web browser, you know, like, you know, hotmail.com, yahoo.com, etc. But, these are email um that's a bad example. Will people type in like a a URL, you know, like um company name.com, company name.co.uk, that type of thing?

[00:02:55]Uh or will AI agents be doing the browsing, uh comparing, and buying for people?

[00:03:01]Uh while the website sits quietly in the background as kind of plumbing, let's call it.

[00:03:08]Obviously, this sounds dramatic, uh but the shift is already measurable, you know, as I just mentioned in 2020's first 4 months of 2026, 68. 01% of searches in the US resulted without a single click to a website. Now, that's a dramatic shift. Uh and that's up from uh 40 outside from 60.45% in 20 24. So, it's the steepest jump in a 2-year period. Uh and in case you want to research that yourself, that's a quote from Rank Bits.

[00:03:40]Uh fewer than one in three searches now end uh with a visitor to open a web web link.

[00:03:47]Fascinating subject. This is why I feel that like a lot of marketers and you know, companies who are recruiting for like marketing staff are I don't want to use the word clutching at straws, but they're a little bit worried about, you know, whether they've got the strategy right and whether they're doing all the right things because, you know, the bottom line is get the goalpost has moved, you know, the game, the marketing game which, you know, companies are kind of engaged in to win new clients has dramatically shifted. Um So, look, um so, you know, our our website's going to die? You know, probably not, but the the actual landing page, uh you know, it is probably going to um be demoted, you know, from from all the research I've done online. Um you know, what's probably going to happen in the future, almost certainly, is the website is going to become, you know, a piece of infrastructure because, you know, websites need still need to exist in order for the AI uh search engines and AI overviews to actually cite the source, you know? So, if those websites aren't there, um then, you know, the AI won't be able to recommend it or cite the source.

[00:05:00]Okay, so, the honest space evidence answer is more interesting than the headline. Websites won't disappear by 2030, it won't, but but job is changing fast, as I just mentioned.

[00:05:11]The homepage is being demoted from front door to trusted layer source and transaction hub while discovering convert conversation moves to AI search engines, agents, social platforms, and messaging apps.

[00:05:25]There is a big shift happening. I mean, you know, a lot of these kind of AI agents and um AI platforms and social media platforms, they're becoming a type of search engine. There's a lot of companies now using them for brand awareness and also raise brand awareness, let's say.

[00:05:42]Okay, so, let let's talk about zero-click search. So, zero-click search is now the norm, Uh you know, you you you'll see that pretty much just by having a little play around in Google in in the URL bar.

[00:05:55]Okay, what was I saying? Spark Toro's June 2026 analysis of SimilarWeb SimilarWeb clickstream data found that 68% of US searches ended without a click, the fastest acceleration in a decade, largely driven by AI overviews, and that's cited by Arcalea, [snorts] if you want to look it up.

[00:06:19]When an AI overview When an AI overview appears, click-through rate drops roughly 60% according to Site Booster. So, yeah, that's a staggering amount, isn't it?

[00:06:30]So, if you just put Let's just pause the conversation for a minute. Imagine you're, you know, a marketing manager in a company. Imagine you're a founder of a small business, or you're just starting up a business, or you might be a solopreneur.

[00:06:44]You know, the >> [snorts] >> the the purpose of the website, I'm not I'm not saying websites are disappearing, but the purpose of a website is kind of shifting, you know, it's more about, you know, legal compliance, having your own terms and conditions, and being being the transaction hub, if you like. Um, you know, whereas in the past, it was all about being the front door, and you know, getting people off Google to jump over to your hop over to your website, and you know, click the various links. Now, that's happening much less because of the AI AI overviews and zero-click search and stuff. Yeah, it's scary times. So, you know, a lot of these kind of companies are, you know, perhaps scratching their heads thinking, you know, have we got Have we got the right marketing manager? Have we got the right head of marketing? You know, have we got the strategy right?

[00:07:30]Um, what's going wrong? You know, we're spending the same We're spending the same amount of money or more money than we were last year, but we're not getting the the traffic, we're not getting and conversions. And that's because there's been the shift, you see, with regard to AI search and AI agents, [snorts] AI overviews, and all the rest of it. And, you know, companies who don't have that the right strategy, who aren't deploying the resources in that those directions right now, or even better, 6 months ago or 12 months ago, you know, likely seeing losses with regard to the traffic that they used to have, you know, and they may be having to go out and, you know, do things in slightly different ways, more door-knocking, ringing people up, more posts to social media. That doesn't always result in, you know, because what I'm trying to say is social media doesn't always well well from what I know, you know, social media doesn't recommend content, you know, unless it's a manual post or something.

[00:08:24]Whereas with AI, when somebody searches on Google, or, you know, one of the search engines, the AI will cite and recommend content based on the search query that's put into the search engine, yeah? So, that's the difference. Um, Okay, so let's carry on. So, a separate a sorry, a separate randomized study of 1,065 desktop Chrome users found that AI overviews cut outbound organic clicks by 39.8%.

[00:08:53]Okay, and raised zero-click searches by 34.5%.

[00:08:57]Again, staggering amounts.

[00:08:59]When the feature appeared, yeah, so, you know, when the feature AI overview, with no measurable improvement in how users rated their search experiences. That's cited by PP C Land.

[00:09:14]Yeah, I'm I'm sourcing the sources for this cuz it's, you know, it's quite an important topic, so.

[00:09:19]Bain & Company's 2025 data is even starker.

[00:09:22]Queries with AI overviews have an 83% zero-click rate. Gosh, that's a lot, isn't it?

[00:09:30]And in Google's experimental AI AI mode, it hits 93% according to Strategic YC.

[00:09:38]Yeah, I think that's where I Yeah, strategic Y C. Gosh, so yeah, I'll just repeat I'll say Bain Bain & Company's 2025 data is even starker. Queries with AI overviews have an 83% zero click rate. And in Google's experimental AI mode, it hits 93%.

[00:09:59]Staggering.

[00:10:01]Yeah, I mean I've I've mentioned actually all of the videos I've done, you know, some of them last year but the whole marketing thing is shifting. It's changing the job market as well. It's not what all of these videos is about, but you know, a lot of the people who are like me work in marketing, you know, have got certain skills and certain areas and stuff. And now, you know, because of this shift and pivot AI and, you know, kind of AI search engines, AI traffic, and all the rest of it, you know, we have to kind of upskill and learn new skills and and adapt, you know, as as the end users are as like companies and businesses. So, yeah, it's a challenging time. Um Okay, so Chartbeat data shared with Axios showed small publishers lost 60% of their search traffic in 2 years.

[00:10:49]Medium sites dropped 47%.

[00:10:51]Wow.

[00:10:52]And even even the biggest publish publishers, sorry, lost 22%.

[00:10:57]While traffic from AI chatbots still accounted for less than 1% of total publisher page views. That's associated by e-commerce Fastlane.

[00:11:07]Gosh. [snorts] Okay, so Uh we're on to the next chapter now. So, talk about AI agents and whether they're starting to do shopping for us. Uh you know, personally speaking, I have not, um you know, a lot of these sites are automated. I use Amazon a lot, you know, um but I don't I can't honestly say I've, you know, used an AI agent to do shopping for me personally. I still prefer to, you know, log into an e-commerce site, um, you know, kind of zip zip around the store, put in the basket what I want, and and do a checkout. It's incredibly quick. Even with Amazon, I ordered something the other day. I ordered it at like 6:00 p.m. and by, you know, 5:00 p.m. the next day, it was literally through through the letterbox, you know, incredible. Um, so the speed of these things, um, but let let's just get back to cuz we're we're kind of digressing a little bit.

[00:11:59]Let's just get back to this.

[00:12:01]Our AI agents starting to do our shopping for us.

[00:12:04]The threat isn't just, uh, you know, the threat isn't just answer engines keep you on the page, it's autonomous agents browsing and buying on your behalf. I've not seen that personally yet, but I think it's coming.

[00:12:17]Uh, Gartner predicts that by 2030, 20% of digital commerce transactions will run through AI platforms or autonomous agents, according to Magic Suite.

[00:12:29]So, as I said, as I said, I've not, uh, I don't believe we're at that exact stage yet, but obviously we're not. Uh, you know, I've not had AI agents doing shopping for me, but, you know, the speed that this thing's going, and, you know, governments around the world are building massive data centers, you know, including in the UK and America and other countries as well, with the the breakneck speed that the the AI, uh, you know, ex- explosion is going, uh, you know, it's it's it's it's coming, you know. Uh, whether or not it's going to be a good thing is something perhaps we'll be asking in the in the, uh, the years to come. Okay, so, look, let's get back to it. So, Gartner also forecasts that by 2028, 90% of B2B, business-to-business buying that is, will be intermediated by AI agents, and 80% of customer service queries will be automated by Agentyc AI, according to Magic Suite and CX Today.

[00:13:27]I can we already see the customer service thing, you know, being, you know, automated by different forms of AI. I mean, I see that with my bank, you know, they different you know, we got a customer service, but it used to be a couple of years ago it used to be great.

[00:13:40]We could actually message them and get and get a an email back from a human being. And with some banks like Starling that is still the case, but with other banks, you know, certainly the big four or the big five, um you know, a lot of them have got bots now, uh which I personally don't like. I feel you've got less control. You ask a question and it, you know, it will kind of summarize your query back and say, "Is that correct? Choose 1 2 3 4 5." And then you go through to the next loop.

[00:14:05]And yeah, I don't like it. I'm much prefer talking to a human being.

[00:14:09]So, McKinsey estimates agent-driven commerce could redirect $3 to $5 trillion of global retail spending by 2030. That's quoted in dollars.

[00:14:19]Uh Shopify reports uh orders from AI-powered searches grew 15 times year-on-year through 2025.

[00:14:28]It's quite a lot, isn't it? 15 times.

[00:14:31]Uh >> [snorts] >> and ChatGPT has launched shopping features backed by its agentic commerce protocol, uh according to International Finance.

[00:14:41]Okay, uh Data Analytics finds 73% of US consumers now cite AI as a primary source for product research, according to Magic Suite. Yeah, we we we we getting to that stage where like, you know, everything all these companies in a bid for efficiency, speed, cost reduction, accuracy, um you know, mainly cost. Um you know, all this this this AI race on. Uh you know, it's here it's here already.

[00:15:10]Uh it's just going to get bigger and bigger.

[00:15:12]Uh as I said, whether that be a good thing or a bad thing is another conversation. You know, I was reading a separate article this morning about, you know, different kind of sciences.

[00:15:22]I'll try and find the um I'll try and find the the actual text for that or or or you know, I'll go back to the link I was looking at. I'll see if I can put some of those in the description. A lot of leading figures are saying that, you know, perhaps be able you know, we might not be able to control the AI when it gets too intelligent and Bill Gates was one of the people who said that.

[00:15:45]You know, it might become a concern in the next, you know, 10 15 years. Um I mean, it's already incredible what it can do. I mean, you know, some of the things which you know, the AI can do, you know, it can write whole essays in 90 seconds flat 20 seconds flat.

[00:16:01]You know, a lot of you know, countries and authorities and, you know, senior people are saying that, you know, it might cause the people in generation below me, including my generation as well, to, you know, maybe be a bit lazy and rely on the AI a bit too much. So, you know, there's going to have to be these controls built into it, I believe. Many people believe that, by the way, to make sure that it doesn't run away and start controlling us if that makes sense. Yeah, it's crazy the speed of it.

[00:16:34]Okay, so the implication if an agent is doing browsing, comparing and buying, the website stops being a destination and becomes a data source. This is what I was saying at the beginning of the video. You know, like looking ahead, you know, in the next 5 years, you know, the websites which exist or that may exist will become more of a piece of infrastructure.

[00:16:55]So, it will be more structured machine-readable catalogs for answer specific questions rather than a homepage designed to seduce humans. Yeah, I mean, all of us would agree in the past, you know, we've had a beautiful web designer create a beautiful page designed to seduce humans. Written by the the copy's been written by a human with you know certain tone and new you know I'm fit impulses if you like to get humans to click on the next button and stuff. But that's all changing now. You know it's starting it's it's already happening but it's it's going to get bigger and bigger. You know the AI is looking for websites that are machine readable to you know site the source, quote the source and you know potentially refer an inquirer back to a website to complete a transaction. So it's less of of kind of it's going to be less of a kind of front door airy-fairy you know human written copy type thing.

[00:17:55]It's going to be more of a a kind of legitimate you know piece of infrastructure from a legal terms and conditions, privacy statement and transaction hub side of things. Uh because you know but I suppose the paradox of this is you know like if the websites didn't exist then the AI won't be able to site [snorts] source or be inquiries back to the website. So you know they they will exist but you know it's definitely changing. Um you know everyone can see that especially people in business who you know work in lots of inquiries and they're getting less.

[00:18:30]Okay so social and video platforms are becoming search engine. Younger users are increasingly starting product and information searches on TikTok, YouTube and Instagram rather than Google. Uh combined with messaging apps, voice assistance and marketplace checkouts uh the traditional visit a website funnel is fragmenting across many surfaces.

[00:18:52]Yeah look I see that. I mean I mean look I've got a TikTok account. I don't use it much. Have a look if you want. Um I've got a YouTube obviously this is YouTube.

[00:19:01]But you know I'm on Instagram as well and you know a lot of products have been advertised on these platforms you know in the feed with the algorithm and stuff. And uh know it's a great way to create brand awareness, and it's also cheaper to advertise on TikTok, uh you know, Instagram than perhaps it is with Google Ads. You know, that's certainly my experience.

[00:19:21]So, yeah, these things are becoming great um are becoming a search engine. You know, that's where younger people are going, not necessarily like kids, but you know, the demographic, let's say 40 below.

[00:19:35]Maybe above 40, you know, um people aren't What I'm trying to say people aren't just going to Google or to search a product, you know, people are you know, might be searching a product on TikTok or, you know, Temu or, you know, uh you know, Instagram or Threads or whatever it might be. So, whatever the whole website thing is becoming more frag- fragmented, basically. That's what That's what I'm trying to say.

[00:19:58]Okay, so but here's the case that websites will survive but in a different form. Uh so, ownership and control versus rented land. So, every platform is a landlord and a restaurant.

[00:20:11]Yeah, social algorithms change overnight. You see this a lot to me, you know, I've spent, you know, months and months and months working on a platform and the amount of subscribers or followers connections, and then the algorithm a new algorithm comes in or the platforms change the rules, and then you're at a disadvantage cuz it's not you it's not your site. You you know, you're renting a space on their site, if that makes sense.

[00:20:33]Okay, so >> [clears throat] >> excuse me.

[00:20:36]Yeah, so social algorithms change overnight. Accounts get suspended, and platforms reach uh reach decays unless you Yeah, yeah, platforms reach decays or declines is a better word.

[00:20:49]Uh unless you feed it constantly. So, a website is the only place you fully own the relationship, the data, uh and the experience. Brands that abandoned websites for Facebook pages in the 2010s, 2015s perhaps, uh maybe in the 2020s, uh learned this the hard way when organic reach collapsed.

[00:21:12]Okay, so trust legal and compliance say you can't host terms and you can't host you know terms of service, privacy policies, uh regulatory disclosures, pricing, and technical documentation solely inside a chatbot. Uh banks, healthcare, legal, and government services all need durable uh auditable, linkable pages.

[00:21:33]Uh AI answer engines or let's call them AI search engines um themselves need trustworthy source material to cite as I was saying at the beginning of the video, which means the open web stays valuable valuable precisely because it's the kind of citation layer that the AI needs to quote the source and refer a user back to it by providing a link, yeah?

[00:21:57]Yeah, so deep subject. I mean I mean like I wanted to make a video about this today because, you know, everyone's talking about, you know, social media and you know, YouTube and content creation and stuff. And you know, although I've made a couple of videos on AI search, not too in-depth, this was like kind of last year, you know, things have moved on a bit and, you know, this video will hopefully give you a bit of a bit of a flavor for what's happening right now and what's going to happen in the next 5 to 10 years and beyond, you know?

[00:22:29]Okay, so do do do do right. So Okay.

[00:22:35]So yeah. Okay, so transactions, accounts, and support flows. Checkout, account management, subscriptions, returns, and complex support still need a controllable environment, okay?

[00:22:50]Marketplaces take a cut and impose their rules and own site lets a business keep margins and customer data. Yeah, so if you own the site, you can kind of control your margins and you can control your customer data. Whereas, if you've got everything on Facebook or Instagram or TikTok, for example, or some AI chatbot, you haven't got the same amount of control over, you know, how things are displayed cuz these platforms can change the rules and, you know, they can change the algorithm. And, you know, if you've got everything on a rented piece of land, i.e., a third-party platform, and you don't have your own site, then you could very easily find yourself at a disadvantage, corporate disadvantage.

[00:23:33]Yeah, AI needs websites to exist. Here's the paradox, as I mentioned. So, AI overviews, ChatGPT, and Perplexity all summarize and cite web uh cite website website pages.

[00:23:46]If websites vanished, the AI engines would have nothing to read. The website becomes infrastructure for AI, a source layer rather than a destination, but a necessary one.

[00:23:58]Yeah, I mean, look, I mean, you know, many years ago, not not well, not many years ago, so 5 years ago I used to have a website.

[00:24:05]And, it's so cheap to get one up. I mean, depending on what kind of website you need. Uh if you just want like a little simple business card website, you can literally throw one up for a tenner on card.io.

[00:24:18]Let's just check that out. I think it it might be it's card.io or let me check that.

[00:24:23]Let's see if it's card.io or >> [panting] >> Let's or card.co.

[00:24:31]Yeah, card.co. Corrections, my my apologies.

[00:24:34]Yeah, and you can literally throw one up for a tenner. If you're a one-man band, you might be like a plumber or electrician or uh you know, carpenter or handyman, something like that, and that would suit you great, you know, and there's some quite nice designs and they're responsive. They work on like mobile mobile devices. Uh like great, you can't you can't beat that. I haven't found anywhere cheaper. Um even if you go to like GoDaddy, um, you know, or uh 123Reg or Cloud Next, anywhere like that, uh, or any of the other sites, you're looking at the best part of 70 to 100 quid a year. So, depending on what you need, you know, it's really cheap.

[00:25:11]We're not recommending anything. I'm just saying, you know, how cheap it is.

[00:25:14]But, you know, it's necessary to have a website and it will be, uh, you know, because you need to have all your pricing, your terms and conditions, your, you know, uh, your registered office information if you're a limited company or if you're a sole trader, like your trading address could be a post office, a post box address. Um, so, these things won't disappear, but as I said, the the idea of that, um, you know, you can have a a beautifully designed homepage from a a digital marketing agency and that's going to result in a lot of click-throughs is kind of, uh, not really the reality going forwards.

[00:25:52]Uh, you know, cuz AI's growing and it's citing sources based on what people type into the AI chatbots and I mean, even like even Google's got its own form of AI.

[00:26:03]You know, like, if you just go to Firefox and instead of typing in the actual, uh, box in the middle of a browser, type in the box slightly above it where it's got a little Google icon. Uh, just ask a question and it will feed back an AI overview and it's very accurate. Um, you know, uh, yeah, definitely. It's it's free and the thing I like about that is you can get an unlimited amount of, queries or search queries. Whereas, if you use some of the other platforms like ChatGPT or Perplexity, you know, they limit on ChatGPT, you know, they limit limit you to so many free queries a day and then they want you to upgrade. So, yeah, Google Search is great. Um, but let's get back to this. Um, I've got too many windows open as normal. Uh, I have it open in front of me.

[00:26:47]5 seconds. Here we go. Right.

[00:26:49]So, like consumer caution is real.

[00:26:52]Despite the hype consumers are not ready to hand over everything to AI agents.

[00:26:57]I'm certainly not not just yet.

[00:26:59]One study found consumers expect only about 10% of their shopping to be done using AI agents within 5 years and in-store shopping is still preferred by the majority including myself. And that's quoted by Green Sheet or cited by Green Sheet. Roughly 27 27% rejected the idea of AI agent shopping outright. Habits change slower than headlines. Yeah, I can understand why people don't want to do that cuz you know surely you know if the AI agent's going to do the shopping for you it means that the AI knows a lot of even it means even AI agent even has a lot of information about you or you're giving AI agent a lot of information about yourself.

[00:27:40]Almost the same thing in in different um in reverse. Yeah, there's quite a bit of stuff here. Um Yeah, this is slightly small. I'm not I'm not I'm not going to read out all I'll read out some of the pros and cons and then we'll wrap up the video. So keeping with the traditional website, you got a full ownership of your data, brand and customer relationship.

[00:28:04]Uh trust legal compliance and audit Yeah, audit auditability, you know, so you get an auditor in they want to check what you got information you got on there stuff. It's required a citation source layer for AI search engines.

[00:28:19]Uh higher margins on transactions I mean no platform fees. You know, you sell on TikTok live or TikTok shop they take a cut. You know Of course, you know, there's other platforms that do as well.

[00:28:31]Um Long-form evergreen discoverable content. So you know, evergreen content is you know, reliable content which kind of sits in the the normal scheme of things which people can relate to well.

[00:28:44]Um some of the cons uh, kind of maintaining the status quo with the traditional website, harder to get traffic as zero clicks as zero click searches rise.

[00:28:57]That's a That's a big issue facing companies of all sizes. You see, if you go and spend five grand on a website, let's say let's say if you're a new company and you're hoping to launch, then if you haven't got a very strategic plan and a lot of budget to and the right people to, you know, optimize for AI search, then, you know, it's almost a waste of time because, you know, >> [snorts] >> there's lots of kind of things that need to be done, like what's called GEO, which is stands for generative optimization.

[00:29:28]Generative Yeah, so it used to be SEO, search engine optimization. GEO is gen generative engine optimization. Bit complicated, that.

[00:29:38]Maybe not. Um, so yeah, that's a new thing. And look, there are some platforms out there which claim to be able to help businesses, um, you know, get optimized for GEO.

[00:29:49]Profound AI is one of them, but there are others.

[00:29:53]Uh, it's quite expensive, by the way, because it's a new thing, because it's not mainstream, cuz not everybody's trained up in it, and because it's a developing, emerging, evolving thing, you know, it is quite expensive. It What I'm trying to say is it's not like 50 pounds to get, um, you know, some of these chatbots, um, sending thousands of people to your website. Yeah, you you know.

[00:30:14]So yeah, I mean, but that's a work in progress, and as it evolves, as the platforms, as the kind of specialist companies which are or people who are involved in that area learn more, and the integration between the AI chatbots, search engines, and the, um, the actual websites, and you know, the sources, um, improves, then, you know, over a period of time that would improve. But yeah, but it's it's it's a very new thing, a very new thing.

[00:30:48]It's been around for about maybe a year, year and a bit. But the idea of it, you know, any marketing manager can just say, "Right, this is this is what we're going to do and we're going to you know, have floods of inquiries from GEO and you know, AI search agencies is is a bit of a fallacy because you know, it's it's requires a lot of money, requires a lot of skills and new things. It's evolving. But I don't think anyone knows it all to be honest. There are some platforms out there, but you know, they're limited to maybe less than 10.

[00:31:19]Um So so so certainly from ones I've come across, I've not come across more than 10 platforms which are well known and ready to, you know, help end users businesses get recommended to AI search, yeah. So So just to correct that um or or kind of better phrase that comment, yeah, sure there's digital marketing dig- digital marketing agencies, there's lots of those who will, you know, offer to help to do that. But again, it's a new thing and you know, how how many clients have done that for, how good they are at it, um given that it's an evolving thing and you know, things might change in the next 12 months remains to be seen. But I mean, there are options, but you need a lot of money and it's it's going to take time.

[00:32:08]So yeah, so S- SEO is becoming less reliable and more expensive for the reasons I've just explained. So, you know, some maybe some of the very smaller businesses, you know, maybe maybe they stick with SEO and you know, just to some extent posting to social media is a type of SEO cuz that indexes, you know, your posts to TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, Facebook.

[00:32:31]Those social posts they index and you know, if people search for you, you know, online or search you know, some of the things which can be cited back as sources can include Facebook, Instagram, TikTok. You know, so to some extent that is a type of SEO. I'm not saying that's enough in itself, but that is you know, definitely a part of it.

[00:32:53]Okay, another con is uh as in cons is maintenance, hosting, and security overheads. So, it's getting you know, more expensive with cyber attacks to you know, put in place the right kind of hosting and security and stuff. Depends how big the business is. The bigger the business, the more expensive that bill is going to be, especially if you've got millions of customers.

[00:33:17]Okay, and the other con cons is uh con cons is losing the discovery battle to AI and social platforms. So, you can see how this whole thing is fragmenting and you know, to be honest with you, a lot of marketeers and marketing managers within companies they're kind of struggling to stay on top of it, you know, just like we all are.

[00:33:38]You know, some kind of look at their budget and look at their resources and they think, well, you know, let's just post to social media, carry on making phone calls, do email marketing, couple of events a year, a newsletter once a quarter because that's kind of what their budget permits. But the bigger the company, so you know, if we just think about some kind of company at random, you know, like you know, Barclays Bank or you know, easyJet or you know, MasterCard, you know, companies of various sizes, you know, they have a lot more uh budget uh to spend on you know, things like geo and getting recommended on you know, AI search and all the rest of it. And you know, they've got many more options cuz they've got a budget.

[00:34:28]So, yeah, I mean, like moving to AI social app interfaces, here are some of the pros. Reach users where they already are. AI AI answer engines or AI as I prefer AI search engines about social and messaging. You know, like basically but one of the benefits of, you know, moving to AI and social and app interfaces is you can reach users where they are, you know, instead of, you know, trying to get them to jump over the fence to your website. You know, you can actually start a conversation with them there or create brand awareness actually in their feed where depending on what they're looking at.

[00:35:06]Uh AI agents can transact autonomous autonomously at scale. Uh lower friction con- uh yeah, conversational, voice-friendly, taps into viral social discovery. Some of the disadvantages or straight-up cons, you're renting an audience from a platform that check it can change the rules at any time. I'm sure that's happened to all of us, you know, we've maybe put a lot of work into, you know, Instagram or Facebook or TikTok or YouTube and their algorithms changed or they've changed their their policies and the rules and stuff. So, it's an ever-evolving landscape, you know? You got less control over your data, pricing, and brand experience. If it, you know, if these platforms say that's not allowed or you can't do this or you can't do that, you know, you kind of stuffed. So, platform fees and commission cuts as I mentioned, you know, TikTok shopping TikTok shopping, they take a cut. There are other platforms as well that take a cut and there's lots of them by the way.

[00:36:04]Some of them are e-commerce platforms but they'll take a cut.

[00:36:08]AI agents need trustworthy website sources to function at all. So, yeah, I mean, you know, if you're shifting everything over to kind of like I mentioned, you know, if you're shifting everything over to AI social interfaces and apps and stuff, you just need to be aware of that, you know, these these apps AI agents and stuff. But, you know, we need a website source to be able to site and and and refer the the searches, if you like, back to you. So, yeah, I mean, it's it's it's a mixed one, isn't it? You know, there are benefits with both sides of this.

[00:36:43]Um yeah, so don't abandon your website, reposition it, make it credible. Okay?

[00:36:49]Uh make make it credible, fast, well-structured. Make it a Make it a layer that AI wants to source layer AI wants to site and recommend.

[00:36:58]You know, if you try and do that, you won't go too far wrong. Optimize for AI discovery, often called GEA, which is generative engine optimization.

[00:37:09]Uh use clear headings, FAQs, schema markup, citations, and fresh authoritative pages.

[00:37:16]>> [snorts] >> Build platform-native content on YouTube, TikTok, LinkedIn, Instagram, where discovery is actually happening.

[00:37:24]Capture first-party relationships, so things like email lists, communities, and accounts, so you're not dependent on any rented um platform space, if that makes sense, you know? It's important to have your own email list and your own data, because, you know, if you get locked out of a platform, if they change the rules, then you're not happy with the rules and you don't want to continue, then you might find yourself in a bit of a pickle.

[00:37:49]So, make your website agent AI agent readable, structured product data, clear pricing, and machine-friendly catalogs. Let AI agents send you transactions instead of just summarizing [snorts] you.

[00:38:04]So, websites won't vanish in 5 years, but the idea of a website, you know, being a primary front door where humans type in a URL, you know, you know, and land on browsing your website, you know, but but but that's something that was fading. It's already happening now, and it's only going to get worse.

[00:38:19]So, um look, this there's loads of stuff here. I will put some of these sources that I've quoted into the description so you can check it out for yourself.

[00:38:29]Fascinating subject.

[00:38:31]I'll just wrap up by saying that, you know, a lot of companies are looking for marketing staff. You know, a lot of marketers like myself, you know, everyone's going through this kind of transition period right now where, you know, they're looking at the strategy and they're looking at the budget and they're trying to figure out, you know, what the customer journey is for their would-be customers and how they can best reach them, whether to deploy money into social media and brand awareness, into Google Ads, into [music] TikTok shopping, into etc. etc. etc. or e-commerce platforms or [music] to chuck money at SEO, which has historically been the case, or to invest money in GEO, which [music] is generative engine optimization, which is basically like SEO but for AI search engines if [music] that makes sense.

[00:39:22]So, yeah, it was it was lots to consider.

[00:39:25]A lot of things have changed. [music] A lot of things are going to change more.

[00:39:27]It's very unpredictable. It's very, you know, it's it's an evolving landscape. But, yeah, look, I'll leave it there. I've talked for far [music] too long. I hope you got something out of the video.

[00:39:37]Apologies if I read read off screen a little bit too much on this one but there's a lot of information so I just wanted to kind of do a bit more [music] bit more of that rather than just talking freelance cuz this is quite important information. So, thank you very much for watching and [music] I hope to see you on the next video. Take care. Bye.